New England RadioWatch: October 31, 1996

Norm Nathan, 1926-1996

After 52 years of radio and 70 years of a full life, Norm Nathan
passed away on Tuesday night, October 29, at his home in Middleton,
Massachusetts.

Norm was not only one of the finest broadcasters New England has ever
known, but he was also a colleague and, I'm proud to say, a friend. I
trust NERW readers will understand if I depart from the usual rundown
of news items and indulge in some remembrances of Norm.

He started in radio back in 1944, fresh out of Chelsea High
School. Norm always loved radio, but (as he would have been the first
to admit) it didn't love him back at first. A brief stint at Boston's
WCOP was followed by a slightly longer stay at WESX in Salem, where he
was told he had a speech impediment and dismissed after five months.
From there it was off to Boston's WMEX, which had yet to become the
top-40 powerhouse it would be in the 1960s. In a radio interview last
year, Norm admitted that he probably had almost no listeners in those
days, when he was introducing one mediocre hotel band after another.

It wasn't until the late 1950s that Norm found his niche, after a
short time running a newspaper with his beloved wife, Norma. She went
on to fame as the gossip columnist for the Boston Herald, but for
Norm, it was back to radio, this time with WHDH, where he spent 12
years as Boston's top jazz DJ.

Spinning the "Sounds in the Night" overnight, Norm entertained (and
was entertained by) every jazz notable who passed through Boston in
those years. Jazz was Norm's music, and I know he was saddened in
later years when he found himself working at stations without music
licenses.

As Norm's time at WHDH wound down, he found himself being forced into
different airshifts, playing music he didn't much care for, and it was
then that he broke from WHDH to join WEEI as a news anchor. That was
followed by a few years at WRKO, a brief stint at WMRE (1510) in its
"Memories" era, and finally Norm's fortuitous arrival at WBZ in 1985.

Coming to WBZ put Norm back in his element, with an all-night show
on the weekends that put him on a 50,000 watt clear channel and
brought him into homes and workplaces and vehicles across the East
Coast and into the midwest.

WBZ is where I met Norm for the first time a few years ago. I had
listened to Norm long before that, of course, and I knew what he was
like on the air -- the self-deprecating humor, the "Dumb Birthday
Game" he played with his callers (and anyone hanging around the
station) at 3 in the morning, his entirely fictitious assistant
Marilyn Guralnick, and so on. What I found in person was exactly the
same Norm.

From the time I met Norm until the last time I saw him a few weeks
ago, Norm was never anything less than friendly, caring, funny, and
supportive. Once he found out I was engaged (and, later, married), he
never failed to ask how my wife was doing, and to remind me how much
he missed Norma, who died of cancer in 1991. I think the only time I
ever remember hearing Norm saying anything bitter about anyone was
when he talked about the gossip column that succeeded Norma's "The
Eye" in the Herald; he couldn't bear seeing the new columnists using
some of Norma's pet phrases in print.

Norm was always ready to give his time outside the station for anyone
and anything. He was, very quietly, a volunteer for the Cancer
Society, shuttling patients to appointments, and no doubt cheering
them up as he drove. He was active in the Old Time Radio movement,
hosting a series of radio drama re-enactments around the area every
year. Norm was the moderator each year for Town Meeting in his
hometown of Middleton, and was active in all sorts of local causes.
When I invited him to appear on "Let's Talk About Radio," a
radio-oriented talk show on WJIB (740 Cambridge-Boston), he was eager
to come in, and had us rolling on the floor for two full hours as he
recounted some of his tales of a life in radio. (Those programs will
be rebroadcast this Sunday, November 3, from 3 to 5 pm on WJIB and on
WNEB 1230 Worcester.)

Over the years, Norm came to find himself as the last of the breed, as
colleagues such as Jess Cain, Dave Maynard, and Larry Glick left radio
or went into semi-retirement. I know Norm was crushed when his old
radio home, WHDH, disappeared from the airwaves in August 1994,
especially when he found out the last noise heard on the station was a
toilet flushing. In the end, Norm's show sat alone even on WBZ. At
the end of a week filled with hard news and the political, hard-edged
talk of David Brudnoy and Bob Raleigh, Norm's show was where we all
went for a soft chuckle, a smile, and the feeling that there was
somebody out there who just wanted to cheer you up.

There's something more than a little bit eerie about the timing of
Norm's death. For the last few months, WBZ has been in the process of
moving out of its old studios, and into a new facility on the other
side of the building. The new studios are cleaner, brighter, and
better-equipped...but I will never picture Norm anywhere other than in
the dark, somewhat musty old talk studio. It was just a few days ago
that they finished tearing out the guts of that studio, and it was
unsettling to walk into that familiar room and find only an empty
physical space. Suddenly, it's not merely physically empty; there's
a huge spiritual hole there too.

It's 2 A.M. as I write this; Norm's time of the night. This was the
hour when he hit his stride, making life a little brighter for
listeners all along the path of BZ's booming signal. Norm's producer,
Tony Nesbitt, found the right phrase on BZ tonight, when he talked
about "a hole 38 states wide." So did another colleague, who asked
simply, "What will I listen to now?"

Out there in the vast corporate world that's radio in the 1990s, there
are still a few remnants left of a simpler time, in the days before
shock jocks and satellites, when a jazz record and a joke could be the
foundation for a half-century of great radio. We've just lost one of
the best. Goodbye, old sport.

(Funeral services for Norm Nathan will be held on Friday, November 1,
at 1 p.m., at Temple Beth Shalom in Peabody, Mass. Donations in his
memory can be sent to UNICEF-New England at 1330 Beacon Street, Suite
355, Brookline MA 02146.)